From the Balkans to Barbuda

A number of new and exciting projects are focused on incorporating several techniques in zooarchaeology, including stable isotope analysis, to better understand the complex and intertwined history of humans and certain animals. In this post, Dr. Holly Miller shares some of the goals of one such ongoing research scheme: The Fallow Deer Project.

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The Fallow Deer Project

The Fallow Deer Project is an AHRC-funded multi-disciplinary study looking at the cultural history of Dama dama dama, the European fallow deer. As one of two Research Fellows on the project, my role is to investigate the biogeography and management of fallow deer through time. To do this, I am using a combination of isotope analyses (C, N, Sr, S, O) to look in depth at the archaeological remains of ancient and modern fallow deer populations, investigating questions related to the importation of animals, founding herds and changing management practices. Were fallow deer domesticated? Under what circumstances were fallow deer established across Europe? How do human-Dama relationships reveal worldview?

The Fallow Deer Project Logo

No other species of deer has a closer relationship to people than the European fallow deer, and it is becoming clear that this has been the case for millennia. Since the Neolithic, humans have selectively transported and maintained these elegant animals, moving herds from their native, post-glaciation, range in the eastern Mediterranean, across Europe and eventually the globe. Fallow deer are now one of the world’s most widely-naturalised animals. Wherever they have been introduced they have altered the physical and psychological landscape, and their distribution is a direct record of human migration, trade, behaviour and ideology. In combination with studies of archaeology, history, geography, anthropology, genetics, and osteological research, isotope analysis is being used reveal the cultural significance of the fallow deer as they moved from the Balkans to Barbuda, and everywhere in between.

Assorted fallow deer bones

The project is led by Dr Naomi Sykes (University of Nottingham) Prof. Rus Hoelzel (University of Durham) and Prof. Jane Evans (British Geological Survey). The team are working with researchers from a number of fields and institutions up and down the UK- from archaeologists and art historians, to musicians and deer stalkers.